


The Promise

by itsjustchlamydia (DeadIsTheNewSexy)



Category: Degrassi: Next Class
Genre: Angst, M/M, Post bus crash, nothing is happy or good at the moment
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-03
Updated: 2016-10-03
Packaged: 2018-08-19 10:31:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,333
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8202170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DeadIsTheNewSexy/pseuds/itsjustchlamydia
Summary: Post bus crash, Tristan struggles to deal with his trauma and to find his way back to the love of his life, Miles Hollingsworth.





	

There was only darkness. It was all around him, enveloping him like a thick blanket, wrapping around him, suffocating him. He tried to cry out but his body would no longer respond to his commands. He was floating, helplessly adrift in a place he couldn’t recognize.

  
There was no sound. At first. Then suddenly a roar erupted all around him, ripping through him. It pierced through all the blackness, shattering it into a million pieces only to be replaced by something even darker. He wanted to scream but still could not move any part of his body. People were yelling but what they were saying he couldn’t understand.

_Miles!_ He thought. _Miles, where are you?_

  
There was pain. His body felt like it was on fire. He wanted to cry out, to match the sound of the noises penetrating the darkness. He wanted it to stop, to end and never return. Shock, shock, that is what they always say happens. So why did this hurt so much? He felt like he was being stabbed by a million sharp blades all over his body. The torture was relentless and yet he couldn’t move or react in way.  
Miles. Save me…

And suddenly Tristan woke up in a place he’d never been before. It was bright. His eyes blinked rapidly as they adjusted to the light. He quickly ran his hands over his body, checking each toe and every vein for any signs of damage and finding none. The pain was gone now. The paralysis lifted. The only noise a distant ...beep...beep… keeping time in the background.

  
The place was like nowhere he had ever been before. Tristan looked around but saw only the same image in every direction, as far as he could see.

  
White. Nothing but white. No furniture or buildings or people or trees or...anything. No sky, no ground. Just white all around.

What was happening to him? Tristan swallowed hard, immediately afraid. Where was he? Had he died, is this what heaven looks like?

  
“Hello?” Tristan called out, barely more than a raspy croak. He was surprised by how meek and quiet his voice sounded, as if he was just beginning to learn how to speak for the first time. He expected his voice to echo in the empty vastness but it didn’t. It felt like it died the second he spoke it. For the first time genuine horror began to creep up his spine, making the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end.

He was alone.

  
What had happened? Tristan tried to remember. There had been an away game. The school bus full of his fellow Degrassi classmates. Zig staring at Maya from across the aisle and turning away quickly when she caught him looking. Maya unable to hide the blush creeping up her face as she looked away just as quickly. Grace and Tiny watching something on YouTube together. Jonah practicing air strumming by himself. He had sat near the front making polite conversation with a niner he didn’t know particularly well - Ray something. But really he had been thinking of Miles. His gorgeous and wonderful and completely crazy about him boyfriend Miles Hollingsworth III.

  
Tristan still couldn’t believe that, out of all the people he could have chosen, Miles had picked him to date. And to love. A year ago he never would have believed it possible. Now he couldn't believe a time when Miles wouldn’t be by his side, ready to take on the world with him. How quickly things could change, and how wonderful as well. _Pinch me, I must be dreaming. I still can’t believe this is really happening._ Remember when I said that Miles? Tristan wondered, remember that afternoon in your bedroom when we opened ourselves up to each other like we never had to anyone else before.

  
_Miles had playfully pinched the end of his nose, gently, before quickly kissing the spot where his fingers had been. It had been nothing more than a quick brush of the lips and still it had sent shivers down Tristan’s spine. “Start believing,” you had whispered, pulling me against your chest and kissing the top of my head._ And I had never felt more protected and safe than I did, completely naked, wrapped in your arms.

  
They had been on the bus. What had happened next? Tristan couldn’t...he couldn’t… It was there, an answer so obvious it was on the tip of his tongue. He could feel every part of him straining, trying frantically to think of what the answer was and yet...nothing. There had been a loud noise. The feeling of weightlessness. Almost like flying except he didn’t know how to land. And then there had been the blackness. The suffocating blackness that had crept into every crevice in his body, worming it’s way through his veins, infecting every cell. How had he escaped that?

  
“Hello?” Tristan tried, once more. “Is anybody there?”

  
He looked around again. Spinning in 360 degrees, hoping to see something new. But still, nothing but white all around.

  
**Where are you Miles?**

  
And then in the distance, as though very far away, he heard an answer. Tristan couldn’t make out what was being said. It was muffled, like trying to hear something when you’re underwater.

  
“I don’t understand!” Tristan shouted to no one in particular. “I can’t, I don’t… Please!”

  
The muffled talking got louder, like it was getting closer. Tristan whipped around frantically, trying desperately to make out what direction it was coming from but it was coming, impossibly, from every direction all at once.

  
He ran. He didn’t know where he was going or what he hoping to accomplish. There was nothing but the never ending whiteness. The sound never got closer or farther away. Out of breath and frustrated he eventually sunk down, defeated, and waited.

  
The sounds were loud now. They were voices, Tristan thought. Male, more than one. And if he concentrated hard enough he thought that he was barely able to make out what they were saying. The noise buzzing in his ears.

  
“...Bruising,” the first voice buzzed.

  
He didn’t hear a response from the second voice, only something that sounded like a cry of pain. Had that been him? He couldn’t tell, not with this suffocating white all around, making everything confusing and alien.

He felt pressure on his right hand, like someone was squeezing it tight in their own. Tristan looked down, bringing his hand in front of his face, expecting to see something. There was nothing but the feeling of pressure. He was still entirely alone in the white.

  
“Tris,” he could just make out.

  
“Miles?” Tristan shouted. His heart sped up as excitement flowed through his body. “Miles! I’m so glad you’re here! Please, help me. I don’t unders-”

  
“Tristan,” Miles said, the pressure on Tristan’s hand increased momentarily. Tristan could hear Miles cry then, a sniff at first and then a loud sob until the crying was echoing throughout the white landscape.

  
Tristan looked around, still not ready to abandon any hope that Miles wasn’t hiding somewhere in this white. Tristan wanted to reach out and touch his boyfriend. He wanted to wrap him in his arms and hold him close. But Miles wasn’t really here. Tristan was alone.

  
“I’m so sorry Tris. I’m so sorry. I’m sorry,” Miles repeated, over and over.

  
“No, don’t be. I’m sorry. I’m sorry I’m lost,” Tristan whispered, squeezing his eyes shut to prevent the tears from falling. “I don’t know what happened. I don’t know how to get out of this place.”

  
“Come back to me. Ok? Promise me, you’ll come back.”

  
“I promise. I’ll find a way out.”

  
“I love you Tristan,” Miles said.

  
“I love you too,” Tristan said.

And then the pressure was gone from his hand.

The beeping could still be heard in the background.

Once again Tristan was all alone. “I promise,” he said again, to no one in particular.


End file.
